A Two-Port Multi-Polarization Rectenna with Orthogonal Hybrid Coupler for Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT)

A multipolarization rectenna, consisting of a two-port antenna fed by an orthogonal hybrid coupler and a medium-power rectifying circuit, is proposed. The orthogonal hybrid coupler has realized good isolation (S12 or S21 <-15 dB) between the two ports, which can be, respectively, connected to rectifying circuit and/or communication device for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). Due to the symmetry of the coupler, the proposed rectenna can work at multipolarization modes, i.e., the circular polarization (CP) for the single-port operation and the linear polarization (LP) for the dual-port operation. Besides, a medium-power rectifying circuit is proposed, where its maximum radio frequency (RF) to direct current (dc) power conversion efficiencies is 53.6% (simulated) and 51.1% (experimental) at the input power of 0 and 0.5 dBm, respectively. By using the coupler, the conversion efficiency and impedance matching of the rectenna can be significantly improved. In addition, the power division between the two ports is considered at different modes. Compared with other rectennas, the proposed multifunctional rectenna has merits of multiple polarizations and multimode, which can therefore be used for the incoming waves in arbitrary polarization for SWIPT and cope with the uncertainty in real-world communication environments.